Your singing yesterday was truly glorious! After not being in front of you for a month, it was so great to be back. Here's what we sang. Please keep the song going in your own personal worship this week.]]>Sun, 11 Feb 2018 06:00:00 GMThttp://www.kerrvillebiblechurch.org/blog/what-did-we-sing-february-11-2018Click here to see what we sang on Sunday, February 11. Please use these songs in your personal devotions this week. We're trying something new by making a playlist on YouTube. You can set the playlist to repeat or shuffle and it'll play the songs all day.]]>Sun, 04 Feb 2018 06:00:00 GMThttp://www.kerrvillebiblechurch.org/blog/what-did-we-sing-on-february-4-2018​When we sing, we witness to the people in our church who are yet to believe--the unsaved spouse, the cynical teen, the intrigued friend. We witness to the outsider stepping through the door of a church and even, through the sound we make, to the outsider walking past the door of a church. The sight and sound of a congregation singing praise to God together is a radical witness in a culture that rejects God and embraces individualism. Our songs are the public manifesto of what we believe. (Keith & Kristyn Getty, Sing!)

Here's what we sang today. We encourage you to use these songs in your personal worship this week:

]]>Sun, 21 Jan 2018 06:00:00 GMThttp://www.kerrvillebiblechurch.org/blog/what-did-we-sing-on-january-21-2018Dear Church - in an effort to keep you singing throughout the week, here are a few of the songs we sang yesterday:

Verse 1My hope is built on nothing lessThan Jesus' blood and righteousnessI dare not trust the sweetest frameBut wholly lean on Jesus' name

ChorusOn Christ the solid Rock I standAll other ground is sinking sandAll other ground is sinking sand

Verse 2When darkness seems to hide His faceI rest on His unchanging graceIn ev’ry high and stormy galeMy anchor holds within the veil

Verse 3His oath His covenant His bloodSupport me in the whelming floodWhen all around my soul gives wayHe then is all my hope and stay

Verse 4​When He shall come with trumpet soundO may I then in Him be foundDressed in His righteousness aloneFaultless to stand before the throne

]]>Fri, 07 Apr 2017 05:00:00 GMThttp://www.kerrvillebiblechurch.org/blog/a-pastors-loveHow should a pastor feel about his flock? And how should these feelings be expressed? Check out these somewhat surprising words from Pastor Paul to one of his church plants:

​“But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short while – in person, not in spirit – were all the more eager with great desire to see your face. For we wanted to come to you – I, Paul, more than once – and yet Satan hindered us. For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming? For you are our glory and joy” (I Thess. 2:17-20, NASB, 1995).

Whenever you study the Bible verse-by-verse, you find surprising nuggets like this passage. It gives us insight into Paul’s heart of love that we should all emulate.

Paul’s love was similar to parents’ love for their children. Now that he’s torn away from them by time and distance, brought on by persecution, “having been made an orphan from you”, Paul desperately wanted to see them face to face.

Our son spent an adventurous semester in Israel while a student at The Master’s College. We tried a couple of Skype sessions but the internet was too spotty on his end. We had a couple of phone calls, but that left us wanting more. What relief to have him in our presence, telling his stories and laughing together.

And so it goes with a pastor and his people. Paul shows us in this passage that a Christ-like pastor loves his people like they were his own children.

The first proof of this is how much he wants to see them (v.17). Paul’s words are rated I for Intense. He says “with much strong desire or passion or intense longing, we were more abundantly zealous or eager to see your face.”

Let’s stop here and consider two lessons for all Christians.

#1 It’s right, normal and Christ-like to miss people and long to see them. Pastors especially should grow in this toward their flock. As more of an introvert, I know I struggle with this at times. I also know I pastor best when I long to be with my people.

#2 There is no substitute for face-to-face interaction. Paul could write letters and dispatch Timothy but he knew there was nothing like being there.

The second proof that a Christ-like pastor loves his people like they were his own children is he makes repeated efforts to be with them (v.18). The missionary team wished and willed and wanted to come to them, more than once Paul says. He gave all diligence, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I imagine Paul hated the distance between them and hated Satan even more for hindering him and hated that persecution had driven them away. He lays blame at the feet of Satan.

Ponder these four points about our enemy.

Satan can hinder godly desires from being fulfilled, like closed countries to missionaries or witnessing distractions or tempting us to sin so we lose heart for serving others or going to church.

Satan wants to prevent true pastoral care. He personally hindered Paul from getting back to these lambs and protecting them from wolves.

Satan wants to prevent baby Christians from growing up so he can neutralize their witness. Paul’s presence would help them grow stronger. Satan hates strong Christians.

The roaring lion wants to isolate suffering saints like weak caribou from the herd. If this flock could be cut off from other churches and apostolic support, perhaps their witness could be minimized.

The third proof that a Christ-like pastor loves his people like his own children is they become his pride and joy (vv. 19-20). I used to be bothered to hear a pastor express pride in his flock. Now because of this passage, I’m not! Paul tells them they are his hope of reward, of validation and vindication.

Like the normal hope of every parent to see their kids grow to maturity and become productive (and even reproductive – can I get an Amen?), so this is the normal hope of every pastor who loves his flock.

Paul tells them they are his “crown of boasting”. Stephanos in Greek speaks of the wreath placed on the head of winners in the Greek athletic contests. They were the anticipated wreath upon his head when his contest was over. They would be the gold medal around his neck. The Bible Knowledge Commentary explains: “When life is over and we stand in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming, you Thessalonians will be our source of glory and joy; you mean that much to us.”

Though Paul does not receive glory from men (cf. 2:6), these converts are his pride and joy, his crowning achievement as a missionary and apostle and pastor, whose presence in heaven will vindicate his ministry on earth.

“For you are our glory and joy” (v. 20)

​At first this seems over the top, too emotional, even unspiritual. I thought Christ was to be our glory and joy? Paul was no detached, calculating professional clergyman in it for the paycheck. He is no hireling passing time until retirement. He’s an invested and committed shepherd who loves God’s sheep and derives great joy under Jesus when they prosper spiritually.

To some degree, he hooks his happiness wagon to how they are doing as Christians. Isn’t this dangerous? Of course, but love always is. True ministry of the gospel is never disinterested or detached or without suffering. Sounds like godly parenting again, does it not? True ministry of the gospel will always be dangerous, risky, costly and invested at the deepest levels.

Christ-like love binds the hearts so tightly that the spiritual life of one affects the spirit and emotions of the other. So I said to my church recently: “When you ask me, “how are you?” I will say, “it depends. How are you?”

Let’s be clear. God’s sheep are never the validation of a pastor’s identity or salvation but they are the validation of his call and public ministry of God’s word. They should become his glory and joy.

]]>Thu, 06 Apr 2017 05:00:00 GMThttp://www.kerrvillebiblechurch.org/blog/a-welcomed-word-i-thessalonians-213-16You are trapped in a burning building. Doom is sure. Then unexpectedly someone you don’t know runs in to announce a way of escape. Is this good news?

​Only if you believe it and act on it.

For every person without a saving trust in Christ, life is that burning building. It could collapse at any time. A preacher or parent, a friend or even a foe, has announced to you a way out. But do you believe it? Will you act on it?

As the Word of God comes to individuals, it is either welcomed with open arms or pushed away. As my former pastor would say, the gospel makes you “mad, sad or glad.” Mad because you are offended. Sad because you know it’s true but refuse to act on it. Glad because the hole in your heart is finally filled, your many sins fully forgiven.

Our passage for today is I Thess. 2:13-16. Paul sets these two realities of welcome or rejection before us. On one side of the ledger we find words like: received, accepted, believe and endured. On the other side, killed, drove out, not pleasing, hostile, hindering and wrath.

From this text we discern two signs of a valid reception of the gospel. Could anything be more important?

Sign #1 You believe it comes from God (v.13)

When Paul and Co. entered this thriving city of Thessalonica and preached Christ crucified and risen, as supported by Old Testament Scriptures, these Gentiles received it as coming ultimately from God, not man. Man is only the courier of this package. It shipped from heaven.

The gospel is not something man would invent even if he could. It is far too outlandish and unbelievable and really unflattering for any of us to come up with it.

When an individual receives the gospel, he can truly say: “God just spoke to me.” And what did He say? He said, “I love you. Jesus died in your place. You are forgiven. Now come home.”

God has spoken in Christ! He is not silent or mute or muffled. He is not anti-social or shy or a painful introvert. As Hebrews 1:1-4 reminds us, God is under no gag order. “His final word was Jesus, He needed no other word” as Michael Card sang. Have you heard His final word?

Sign #2 You keep believing despite persecution (vv.14-16).

The second vital sign a person truly believes is that saving faith keeps embracing the very thing that brings the pain! How many persecuted Christians could make it stop by renouncing Christ and going back to Islam or Hinduism or Judaism? But they don’t and instead keep believing the very cause of the hostilities.

This is because the welcomed word goes to work! Like a good pain pill, you take it in the morning and it works all day.

This word of good news is so powerful that it brings new life and then feeds that new life for the rest of your life. You never outgrow the gospel, you just grow deeper into its implications.

This message then sets us on a path of growing holiness and increasing obedience to God’s good commands. It doesn’t free us so we live out of control, pandering to the flesh. It doesn’t encourage us to sin it up because we can just ask for forgiveness. Rather, where the sinful passions were “at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death” (Rom. 7:5), so now the Word of God is “at work” bearing the fruit of righteousness.

In this passage Paul highlights one great work of the implanted word – it makes us willing to suffer for what we believe. If not, do we really believe it?

Hitler’s terror in Nazi Germany was believed to be wrong by many. But only a few Germans were willing to suffer for that belief and resist evil authority. As Israel’s Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, states: “Bystanders were the rule, Rescuers were the exception.”

As hostility escalates in America, will we be the ones who keep believing the gospel and offering life to those dead in sins or will we hedge our bets and lower our heads to remain safe and financially secure?

As Paul so passionately states here, the day of God’s wrath will soon break lose upon the persecutors of Christ’s body. God will take care of them.

This passage also reminds us that the worst persecution often comes from religious people. Just ask Jesus! People consumed with envy and jealousy and fear often turn on God’s spokesmen and harass God’s sheep. We can be the source of their irritation because salt stings and light hurts your eyes when darkness is your ally.

This is because pride and self-righteousness are the deepest and hardest sins of all to see in ourselves and then turn from. Salvation by grace through faith exposes and rebukes the proud religious person inside all of us. When one is righteous in his own eyes because of something other than Christ, the simple message of Christ strikes a nerve.

I close with three valuable lessons.

#1 Persecution is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Persecution of Christians is not racially driven, it is spiritually driven. It results from a heart problem, not a color of skin “problem”. Satan not sociology is behind it. In the history of the church, Christians, whether Jewish or Gentile, have been persecuted by both Jews and Gentiles. Sometimes the worst persecution comes from your own family!

#2 Receive the gospel and you may suffer the wrath of man. Reject the gospel and you will suffer the wrath of God.

Gospel rejection is Jesus rejection. It puts you in league with those who killed Jesus and the prophets.

#3 Those who reject Christ’s good news are not pleasing to God no matter how religious, moral or pleasing to man they may be.

Good deeds can never placate the wrath of God against our sins. In fact some of God’s hottest anger is reserved for religious people who love their religion but don’t love the truth found in Jesus.

For the last three articles we have considered marks of a faithful, exemplary pastor from I Thessalonians 2:1-12. Today I want to share the story of a wonderful illustration of just such a man from church history. His story has encouraged and inspired me to never give up. His name? Charles Simeon.

Born into wealth in 1759 in Reading, England, Simeon was brought up in the Anglican church and entered Cambridge. He was religious but unconverted. He looked back on that time and said, “Satan himself was as fit to attend Holy Communion as I!”

​Satan himself was as fit to attend Holy Communion as I!

​At the age of 20, he stumbled upon a simple phrase that stopped him cold: “The Jews knew what they did when they transferred their sin to the head of their offering.” He was converted on the spot as his eyes were opened to the transfer of his sin and guilt to the head of Christ.

His conversion did not excite his church-going family. They resisted his witnessing attempts. Nor did he find fellowship at King’s College on the campus of Cambridge, for love for Christ was rare there.

Some three years after his conversion, he became a deacon and started preaching. Large crowds gathered to hear the 23 year old with a bold and clear gospel message. Due to the crowds, the church clerk lost his reserved seat in church. When the regular pastor returned after his summer break the clerk joyfully announced: “I am so glad you are come! Now we shall have some room!”

In 1783 at the age of twenty-four, Simeon was appointed minister of Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge, despite much opposition from the church itself. Neither his zeal, youth nor doctrine were appreciated. The people simply didn’t want a man to stand up, armed with the gospel, and expound the Scriptures that called them to repentance and personal faith in Jesus Christ. They wanted something else.

On his first Sunday, in a building that held 900, most members stayed home in protest. So, he preached to the visitors.

In those days the pews were rented and had little doors on the ends with locks. So the pew renters simply stayed home and would not rent them out to anyone else, hoping he would soon grow discouraged and quit.

So Simeon put benches in the aisles for the visitors. The church officers responded by throwing the benches into the church yard.

So he started a Sunday evening service. The church officers locked the doors to keep him and his listeners out. So, for the next five years, he basically preached to the walls.

For a total of twenty-five years, he endured opposition, persecution and harassment mostly alone. He never married.

Along the way, Simeon started sermon classes for local ministerial students who weren’t being trained to preach. He knew England’s only hope was expository preaching. These “Simeonites” or “Sims” became objects of scorn themselves.

One local faculty member at the nearby college deliberately scheduled his Greek sessions on Sunday mornings so his students would not have an opportunity to hear Simeon preach. These same seminary students hurled bricks through the church windows during his worship services and lectures. And yet Simeon preached on, cleaned up the glass and loved his enemies.

A godly man, Charles rose at 4:00 each morning to devote himself to prayer and study of the Bible. He learned to preach by preaching. He made this famous statement:

​“My endeavor is to bring out of Scripture what is there and not to trust in what I think might be there.”

​If ever a pastor was God-tested and approved to be armed with the pure gospel and then eager to please God not man, it was Charles Simeon.

He left a legacy in that one of his first assistants, Henry Martyn, would become one of the first missionaries to India. William Leeke, a zealous “Sim,” and a number of other Cambridge students set up a Sunday school for children living nearby. Two hundred and twenty children showed up for the first session!

He had this advice for preachers: “Be a Bible Christian and not a system Christian.” He collected and published his sermon outlines to help other preachers to preach the Word.

​Be a Bible Christian and not a system Christian.

​He left a legacy in his never quit attitude, eventually winning over many who held him in contempt through his integrity and steadfast clutch on the gospel. To help him stay focused on what matters, he carved into his pulpit where only the preacher could see it the words of John 12:21, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

Taking his personal call and ministerial vow seriously, he stayed in one place preaching God’s Word for 54 years until his death at the age of 77!

At his funeral, hundreds turned out to pay their respects.

​Even though it was a market day, the town closed all the shops for his funeral and the university canceled all lectures. Nearly two thousand people, including the robed academic community, paid tribute to the man who had remained true to the Word. (Warren Wiersbe)

​His legacy lives on today. The Charles Simeon Trust was founded in 2001 with a vision “to promote the growth of the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world by training up the next generation of Biblical expositors.” They hold workshops on expository preaching in over forty locations every year, including one recently in Austin, Texas.

]]>Fri, 31 Mar 2017 05:00:00 GMThttp://www.kerrvillebiblechurch.org/blog/doomsday-part-2I Thess. 5:1-11Do you ever think about the end of the world? I can tell you the writers of Scripture did. The Day of the Lord is a dominant theme running through the Bible. The second coming of Christ is mentioned hundreds of times in the New Testament, with far more prophecies of His return than His first coming. Nearly every book of the NT deals with the subject. A Christ-centered consummation to human history is coming. It behooves us to know about it and be prepared for it.

Christ’s return is the dominant theme of I Thess. 4-5, with chapter four detailing the “snatching away” of the church event, immediately followed by a discussion of the day of the Lord event. To sum up, the day of the Lord is a short time of God’s wrath followed by a long time of God’s reign over the earth in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today as we deal with I Thess. 5:1-11, we find two warnings and two promises related to the coming Doomsday. I pray you are ready.

The First Warning: Doomsday comes suddenly to the unprepared.

“Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night” (I Thess. 5:1,2; all quotes from NASB, 1995).

This metaphor describes the suddenness of the day of the Lord. It comes unannounced and unexpected, thus most of humanity will be unprepared. But like national security, we must get ready and stay ready. The unbeliever is not ready.

The Second Warning: It brings shocking destruction to the unprepared.

“While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape” (v.3).

Doomsday will interrupt the world’s mantra of “peace and safety, peace and safety, peace and safety …” While the masses are saying “don’t worry, be happy”, “I’m OK, you’re OK” and “If it makes you happy, do it”, then destruction strikes like lightening out of a clear blue sky.

Like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, what comes is great loss of peace and safety and there is no escape.

Even though the world is ripe for judgment, it will still be an utter shock in yet another way sin deceives us.

The discomfort of labor pains will be world-wide, with nowhere to hide. God’s wrath is even now being stored up like a flood behind a stressed dam. The concrete and steel are groaning. The massive flood gates are straining. Only God’s mercy holds back His wrath. But one day His patience will run out, the dam will break and the party will be over.

There is one way to prepare – conversion to Jesus Christ as personal Master and all-sufficient Savior from sin. How does one convert to Christ? By turning from sin and trusting Christ’s death on the cross as payment for your sins, believing in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. Only a risen Savior can truly save. By His Spirit He calls us to die to self, take up His cross and come, follow Him.

For those who have done this, Paul gives them two promises.

The First Promise: Doomsday is no threat to the sons of light.

“But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness …” (vv.4,5).

Because of who they are, they are ready for the consummation of this age. If you are not surprised by something, then you were expecting it. If you are expecting something, then you become prepared for it. If you are prepared for something, then it’s no threat. The sons of light can look forward to Christ’s return with eagerness. It is no threat to their happiness.

The Second Promise: Doomsday calls sons of light to sober hope, not fear.

“… so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him” (vv.6-10).

Because of who you are in Christ, don’t sleep in sin and darkness, dull of heart like the “rest”. Instead keep watch, sober and alert, “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus …” (Titus 2:13).

Our eschatology should prompt us to live well-balanced, self-controlled lives of readiness, for no one knows the day or the hour. Cinch up your breastplate of faith and love. Strap on your helmet of hope. We are not destined for wrath but for obtaining rescue through our Lord Jesus Christ! As soldiers behind enemy lines, God will evacuate us before He makes war with the world.

So only the believer can really say “peace and safety” because our greatest problem is already solved! Jesus already took God’s wrath in our place on the cross. We are now God’s friends, at peace with Him. As such we will never be the object of His wrath, only objects of His love and infinite grace and this is true safety.

“Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing” (v.11).

]]>Fri, 17 Mar 2017 05:00:00 GMThttp://www.kerrvillebiblechurch.org/blog/doomsday-part-1I Thess. 5:1-11I realize that’s an ominous headline that sounds like a video game or summer movie. And that’s part of this world’s problem. Any talk of a future judgment is scoffed at, ridiculed, mocked and maligned. Saddest of all is this even comes from professing Christians at times.

Doomsday goes by many names. Judgment Day, Day of Reckoning, the Apocalypse, the Tribulation and the End of the World among them. All of these attempt to describe a unique period of God’s wrathful judgment of the world.

More specifically, we are talking about seven years of tribulation that is part of longer time frame called the Day of the Lord, a major concept in the Bible.

You simply cannot read the Bible without realizing fairly quickly that God is a Jealous God who brings wrath on sinful people who refuse to repent. Beyond that we are told that mankind is “storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Romans 2:5). Paul then asks in the next chapter, “the God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world?” (Romans 3:5, 6).

The Day of the Lord concept is front and center in the prophetic writings of Joel, Isaiah, Amos, Zephaniah and Zechariah. In the New Testament, it is dealt with in Matthew, Luke, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Thess. and of course Revelation, chapters 6-19.

Like our days, the events of the Day of the Lord (not a literally 24 hour day) unfold over time, not all at once. The Bible often compares the judgment phase of the Day of the Lord to labor pains of a woman, pains that increase in frequency and duration until the event is over.

The Day of the Lord then has two major phases: Phase 1 is God’s Wrath on His enemies; Phase 2 is God’s reign over His people. In both phases, ethnic, national Israel is central.

So here then is the Day of the Lord from 35,000 feet. The resurrection/snatching away event (described in the previous chapter of I Thess.) is the trigger event to seven years of escalating, supernatural judgments before Jesus returns to earth to rescue ethnic, national Israel and to set up His 1,000 year Messianic reign, aka the Kingdom of Christ and God.

In a nut shell, when you see Day of the Lord in the Bible think wrath followed by reign.

I Thess. 5:1-11 is focused on that first part – the first few hours if you will – and more specifically, how we as believers should think and live in light of it.

Now this should raise a question: if we as believers are raptured or snatched away before the Day of the Lord, why did Paul’s readers care when the Day of the Lord would come? The answer is this – because both the Rapture and the Day of the Lord are imminent, as taught by Jesus, here by Paul and by John in Revelation.

If both are imminent, meaning they can happen at any moment, then they must happen at the same time, meaning the Rapture must immediately be followed by the beginning of wrath.

We can and should expect both at any moment though these two events are very different in nature and purpose.

For example, it’s like expecting to die and expecting to go to heaven. For believers, both events are imminent. Both could happen at any moment. Therefore they must be simultaneous. And both are very different in nature.

So whether our focus is the Rapture from chapter four or the Day of the Lord here in chapter five, our response as believers is the same: be ready, alert and hopeful but not fearful.

Next time we will look closely at this text and discover two warnings and two promises related to the coming Day of the Lord.